| FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST- May 6, 2009  FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661 Phone or Fax: 713-723-6016 * E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE (URL): http://www.freeman.org THE MACCABEAN ONLINE: URL:http://www.freeman.org/online.htm Freeman Center Blog http://www.freeman.org/serendipity/ ============= ==================== They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. - Plato "The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." -- Ayn Rand ######### Obama Prepares To Throw Israel Under The Bus Melanie Phillips WEDNESDAY, 6TH MAY 2009 As predicted here repeatedly – Obama is attempting to throw Israel under the Islamist bus, and he’s getting American Jews to do his dirty work for him. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly told the Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Sunday that efforts to stop Iran hinged on peace talks with the Palestinians. General James Jones, National Security Adviser to Obama, reportedly told a European foreign minister a week ago that unlike the Bush administration, Obama will be ‘forceful’ with Israel. Ha’aretz reports: Jones is quoted in the telegram as saying that the United States, European Union and moderate Arab states must redefine ‘a satisfactory endgame solution.’ The U.S. national security adviser did not mention Israel as party to these consultations. Of course not. If you are going to throw a country under the bus, you don’t invite it to discuss the manner of its destruction with the assassins who are co-ordinating the crime. As I said here months ago, the appointment of Jones and the elevation of his post of National Security Adviser at the expense of the Secretary of State was all part of the strategy to centralise power in the hands of those who want to do Israel harm. Yesterday Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry turned the thumbscrews tighter, telling Israel to stop building more settlements, dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement. This is all not only evil but exceptionally stupid. The idea that a Palestine state will help build a coalition against Iran is demonstrably absurd. The Arab states are beside themselves with anxiety about Iran. They want it to be attacked and its nuclear programme stopped. They are desperately fearful that the Obama administration might have decided that it can live with a nuclear Iran. The idea that if a Palestine state comes into being it will be easier to handle Iran is the opposite of the case: a Palestine state will be Iran, in the sense that it will be run by Hamas as a proxy for the Islamic Republic. The idea that a Palestine state will not compromise Israel’s security is ludicrous. It is of course, by any sane standard, quite fantastic that America is behaving as if it is Israel which is holding up a peace settlement when Israel has made concession after concession – giving up Sinai, giving up Gaza, offering all the territories to the Arabs in return for peace in 1967, offering more than 90 per cent of them ditto in 2000, ditto again to Mahmoud Abbas in the past year -- only to be attacked in return by a Palestinian terrorist entity, backed in its continued aggression, let us not forget, by the countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has made no concessions at all and is not being pressured to do so. It is not the aggressor here but the victim of aggression that America is now choosing to beat up. In any sane world, one might think the Americans would be piling the pressure on the Palestinians to renounce their genocidal ambitions against Israel, to stop teaching and training their children to hate and kill Jews, to adhere to the primary requirement in the Road Map that they must dismantle their infrastructure of violence as the first step in the peace process; one might think, indeed, that they would view Mahmoud Abbas’s repeated statements that the Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state to be the main impediment to peace. But no. The repeated professions that America will never jeopardise Israel’s security are stomach churning when Obama is actually blaming Israel for measures it has taken to safeguard its security – the settlements were always first and foremost a security measure, and the travel restrictions are there solely to prevent more Israelis being murdered – and trying to force it to abandon them. Today comes further news that Obama will also try to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons – which it only has as a last ditch insurance against the attempt to annihilate it to which several billion Arabs remain pledged. Of course Obama doesn’t care that Hamas would run any Palestinian state. Of course he doesn’t care that Israel would be unable to defend itself against such a terrorist state. Because he regards Israel as at best totally expendable, and at worst as a running sore on the world's body politic that has to be purged altogether (see this bleak assessment by Sultan Knish). His administration is proceeding on the entirely false analysis that a state of Palestine is the solution to the Middle East impasse and the route to peace in the region. What that state will look like or do is something to which at best the administration's collective mind is shut and at worst makes it a potential cynical accomplice to the unconscionable. So Israel is to be forced out of the West Bank. Far from building a coalition against Iran, Obama is thus doing Iran’s work for it. None of this, however, should come as the slightest surprise to anyone who paid any attention to Obama’s background, associations and friendships before he became President and to the cabal of Israel-bashers, appeasers and Jew-haters he appointed to his administration, with a few useful idiots thrown in for plausible deniability. American Jews, meanwhile, are reacting as predicted – with a total absence of spine. As IsraelMatzav reports, AIPAC was sending delegates to visit Congress to 'convince' Representatives and Senators to sign a petition calling for a two-state solution. Inspired! Almost eighty per cent of American Jews voted for Obama despite the clear and present danger he posed to Israel. They did so because their liberal self-image was and is more important to them than the Jewish state whose existence and security cannot be allowed to jeopardise their standing with America’s elite. But the ordinary American people are a different matter. They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next. And it is they to whom Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu must now appeal, over the heads of the politicians and the media and certainly America’s Jews and everyone else. He must tell the American people the terrible truth, that America is now run by a man who is intent on sacrificing Israel for a reckless and amoral political strategy which will put America and the rest of the free world at risk. This is shaping up to be the biggest crisis in relations between Israel and America since the foundation of Israel six decades ago. Those who hate Israel and the Jews will be gloating. This after all is precisely what they hoped Obama would do. To any decent person looking on aghast, this is where the moral sickness of the west reaches the critical care ward. http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3590646/obama-prepares-to-throw-israel-under-the-bus.thtml Obama's Plan to Destroy Israel Daniel Greenfield - May 5, 2009 If there's one thing that the Carter Administration can be given credit for, it's creating the new wave of Islamist terrorism, both Sunni, operating out of Afghanistan, and Shiite, operating out of Iran. The Carter Administration cracked down on Israel and put its "faith" in Muslim terrorists, who then went on to wage war on America, even while Carter was in office. 28 years after Carter was removed from office, we're in reruns again with the Obama Administration, which is not only following the Carter line, but whose plans greatly exceed it. 28 years ago, Wahhabi Sunni and Shiite terrorists were generally an afterthought when compared to the standard USSR backed Marxist terrorist groups, such as the PLO. Today, thanks in part to the Carter Administration, they control several countries and have designs on several more. From Pakistan to Afghanistan, from Gaza to Lebanon, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the threat is very real and bigger than ever particularly as the race by both Sunni and Shiite groups to build and deploy nuclear weapons continues. Like Carter before him, Obama has chosen to cut backdoor deals with the Mullahs in Iran, offering them power over Iraq and Afghanistan, in exchange for quieting things down enough to let him hang up a Mission Accomplished banner and pull the troops out. "Peace with honor", preferably before the next election. The rape law for Shiites in Afghanistan, the push for a US funded Hamas/Fatah Unity government in the territories and the rising expansion of the Taliban are all fruits of this arrangement. If Iran is to be our new best friend under this arrangement, Israel is to be our new best enemy. Obama stacked the deck by deploying Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in a position that gave her an important title, but absolutely no power to go with it, while stacking the National Security Council and even the Pentagon with oil appointees in the pockets of the Saudis or his own left wing radical friends. Israel electing a conservative government really put the ball into play, freeing up even more resources for attacking Israel. The strategy runs something like this. The Obama Administration has broken down the Israel problem into two subsections, Israel itself, and American Jews. Obama's people have studied the problem and understand where Carter went wrong. Obama does not want to have the same image problems as Carter in the Jewish community. Should that happen, the Beloved Leader and his lapdog press are fully prepared to unleash a Chavez style hate-on targeting American Jews. But that would be inconvenient and messy. Even with the changing face of America, there are significant differences between the average American and European or Venezuelan, and what kind of ugliness they are willing to tolerate. So Obama's people have split their attention in handling the two factors as two different problems. American Jews - Obama has been clever about putting his Jewish appointees front and center. Like many minorities, some American Jews suffer from self-esteem problems that are soothed when they see a seeming acceptance. Of course what they fail to realize is that exploitation is not acceptance. And that Obama's appointees are creatures of his backers, Nazi collaborators like Soros, who have nothing but contempt for Jews, individually or collectively. While outwardly courting Jews, Obama's people have also been quietly shoving Jewish organizations and their leaders into a corner. Within the Jewish organizational world there has been a silent but deadly takeover of major Jewish groups by left wing radicals. Former alumni of the far left wing and anti-Israel groups like Breira or Coname in the 70's have been elevated to key positions in such organizations as the UJA Federation. Behind the scenes any Jewish leaders who expressed even doubts about Obama during the primaries were intimidated and silenced. Much as with conservatives, a list has been drawn up of those figures who can be won over, and those who cannot. The ones who can be won over are described as "moderates", the ones who cannot be won over are described as "extremists". Meanwhile a bevvy of left wing Jewish In Name Only groups have been organized to play their part. Key among them is the Soros funded J Street, a group created as an anti-Israel lobby meant to eventually replace AIPAC. Meanwhile AIPAC itself has been kept on the ropes with such things as the well timed Harman leak. The message once again is fairly clear, cooperate and keep quiet, or we'll destroy you. The multi-layered approach to American Jews can then be summed up as follows; 1.) Co-opt existing Jewish organizations and swing them to the left using old school 70's leftists. 2.) Create new "progressive" organizations to appeal to a younger generation of ethnically Jewish youth detached from any actual identity. Have these organizations generate attacks on the Israeli government and pro-Israel Jews, while creating phony polls indicating that most American Jews are behind them and Obama. 3.) Silence and intimidate remaining Jewish organizations and leaders behind the scenes. The overall idea is to keep a happy face pasted on American Jewry while the knives are out in the dark. Israel - The basic understanding in the Obama Administration is that Israel Must Go. In the worldview of the more moderate Obama appointees, Israel is a destabilizing factor in the Middle East. To the more left wing Obama advisors, Israel is a Western imperialist colonialist state that must be destroyed in the name of revolutionary justice. To the Islamist mindset, Israel is a Kufir state that has no right to exist in the Dar Al Islam. While intractably hostile to Israel, the Obama Administration wants to avoid the kind of public confrontations that marked the Carter and Bush Sr administrations. Instead they would much rather model the way that the Clinton Administration waged a quiet war against Israel, removing one government, and forcing extensive concessions to terrorists, all the while keeping a happy face pasted on the whole affair. On the one hand that means avoiding harsh public attacks on Israel, but keeping the pressure up for Israel to make extensive far reaching one sided concessions, to accept Saudi and Arab League "peace plans", to legitimize Hamas as the new government of the Palestinian Authority, and to insure that Israel does not reply to any rocket or terrorist attacks. There are two forms of quiet leverage that the United States has on Israel, the first is financial and the second is military. On the financial side, the goal will be to bring down the Netanyahu government coalition by destabilizing Israel economically. This is the surest and most direct path to bringing down Israel's conservative government and replacing it with a left of center coalition. The Obama Administration has a wide variety of tactics at its disposal for doing so, from the overt, such as targeting Israeli exports and imports, to the covert, that would involve targeting the Shekel. Additionally fundraising in the US could be investigated and groups such as the Jewish National Fund, prevented from raising money in the US. All of these have been in play before at one time or another. On the military side, Obama's people will make their non-existent efforts to stop Iran's nukes conditional on more concessions to terrorists. Since Israel will never be able to make enough concessions and since Obama is working with Iran, rather than working to stop Iran's nukes, this is a hollow charade. Furthermore while Israel has already been locked out of the military technology pipeline for anything cutting edge, it still remains dependent on US military equipment for parts and supplies. The decades of US foreign aid have also served to create dependency. Unlike many other countries, including even Sweden, Israel does not have its own jet fighter. Israel's Air Force is heavily dependent on US weapons, parts and equipment. Cutting Israel off, would leave the Israeli military dangerously vulnerable in the case of a war. This is an effective chokehold that has been used before to prevent Israel from attacking Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, as well as preventing Israel from carrying out a preemptive strike against its enemies before the Yom Kippur War. The overall Obama policy will be to push Israel to the brink, using financial and military blackmail against the Netanyahu government, while maintaining control over American Jews to prevent any protests or backtalk. The more Israel will offer, the more the Obama Administration will tighten the screws. No offer will be good enough, and Israel will be blamed for every breakdown in talks and every bit of violence that takes place. The media will portray Israel and particularly Netanyahu as extremist and intransigent. Hamas will be slowly whitewashed in the media, the same way that Arafat's goons were, (assuming that they prove more willing to cooperate in creating a positive media image of themselves than Ahmadinejad is.) The plan is to destroy Israel, and to do it by pushing Israel to the edge of the cliff and then over the cliff. Israel's enemies will be getting top of the line US military equipment. Israel will not. Israel will be squeezed economically until the Netanyahu government collapses, leaving a weak left wing leader like Livni in charge of Israel, and in charge of acceding to the new Pharaoh's demands. Meanwhile so-called American Jewish groups will support Obama all the way, some because they were created precisely for that purpose, e.g. J-Street, and others because they have been hijacked, cowed or subverted. That is the game plan and some of it's coming. The rest is already here. Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and freelance commentator. “Daniel comments on political affairs with a special focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western Civilization. He maintains a blog at http://Sultanknish.blogspot.com Daniel can be reached at: sultanknish@yahoo.com http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/05/obamas-plan-to-destroy-israel.html Washington's Elders of Anti-Zion May. 5, 2009 Lenny Ben-David , THE JERUSALEM POST www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710872891&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull AIPAC's annual conference opened this week to the auspicious news that the US Justice Department will drop its case against two former AIPAC employees on espionage-related charges based on a 90-year-old statute. But the original charges brought against Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman left some friends of Israel uneasy over the calumny of American Jews' "dual loyalty." In recent weeks, the case escalated with accusations that Congresswoman Jane Harman, a strong congressional friend of Israel, attempted to influence the case. In March the queasiness was widespread in the pro-Israel community after Charles "Chas" Freeman claimed that the Israel lobby torpedoed his appointment to head the US National Intelligence Council. "The aim of this lobby," Freeman told reporters, "is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result, he continued, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics." Freeman's complaints echo the widely-criticized 2007 book, The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in which the authors claim that the Israel lobby's core consists of "American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend US foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." And all this came after former president Jimmy Carter published his anti-Israel screed, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid in 2006. BY NO MEANS should anyone ignore or minimize the Washington leaks and attacks against AIPAC, the American Jewish community or Israel. But it should be understood that these actions are part of a historic, decades-long, beneath-the-surface low-intensity war in Washington to weaken US-Israel relations. Not much has changed since an Arab propagandist in the US, Muhammad Mehdi, proclaimed some 40 years ago, "The road to the liberation of Palestine leads through Washington." In more than 35 years of my involvement in US-Israeli relations, I have seen the ebbs and surges of various anti-Israel campaigns. Once the anti-Israel crusade was led or conducted by senator J. William Fulbright and congressman Paul Findley, assisted by Jewish anti-Zionists like Elmer Berger and the apostate Alfred Lilienthal, and supported by Arab propagandists and oil interests. In the 1960s and '70s the legislators charged that American policy in the Middle East was too pro-Israel and that Congress was corrupted. In 1962 Fulbright launched an investigation of foreign lobbyists in Washington, attempting to force AIPAC to register as an agent of Israel rather than a domestic American lobby. His chief investigator was a journalist named Walter Pincus. (Today, Pincus, The Washington Post's veteran national security reporter, helps cover the Jane Harman story and the Rosen-Weissman trial.) "Israel controls the United States Senate," Fulbright told Face the Nation in 1973. "Around 80 percent are completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants it gets. Jewish influence in the House of Representatives is even greater." (Years later, after retiring from the Senate, Fulbright registered as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia.) Freeman, Walt, and Mearsheimer are but parrots of Fulbright and under secretary of state George Ball who wrote a 1977 Foreign Affairs article, "How to Save Israel in Spite of Itself." Ball declared more than 30 years ago, "How far should we go in continuing to subsidize a policy shaped to accommodate understandable Israeli compulsions which do not accord with the best interests - as we see it - either of Israel or the United States, but are a threat to world peace?... Because many articulate Americans are passionately committed to Israel, the slightest challenge to any aspect of current Israeli policy is likely to provoke a shrill ad hominem response. To suggest that America should take a stronger and more assertive line in the search for Middle East peace is to risk being attacked as a servant either of Arab interests or of the oil companies, or being denounced as anti-Israel, or, by a careless confusion of language, even condemned as anti-Semitic." In the mid-1970s, secretary of state Henry Kissinger, frustrated by Israel's tough negotiating position and encouraged by Ball, pushed president Gerald Ford to conduct a "reassessment" of relations with Israel. After AIPAC rallied strong congressional opposition to the administration's proposed policy change, AIPAC was investigated by the Justice Department to see if it should register as a foreign agent of Israel. The investigators concluded, "There is not one shred of evidence that AIPAC should be registered as a foreign agent." AS RONALD REAGAN's vice president, George H. Bush reportedly led the efforts to embargo F-16 aircraft shipments to Israel after the bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981. In 1991 as president, Bush went toe-to-toe with the American Jewish community when he sought to tie loan guarantees, which Israel needed to provide housing for the massive aliya of Soviet Jews, to restrictions on the building of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. When Jewish organizations went up to Capitol Hill to lobby for the aid, Bush went on national TV, pounded his fists and declared that he was "up against some powerful political forces... I heard today, there were something like a thousand lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question. We've got one lonely little guy [the president] down here doing it." Bush went on to chip away at public support for Israel by claiming that American soldiers had "risked their lives to defend Israelis" in the Gulf War and that "despite our own economic problems the United States provided Israel with more than $4 billion in economic and military aid, nearly $1,000 for every Israeli man, woman and child." Bush's speech unleashed a flurry of anti-Semitic comments in the US to an extent that the White House felt it had to react. "I am concerned that some of my comments at the Thursday press conference caused apprehension within the Jewish community," Bush wrote to American Jewish leaders. "My references to lobbyists and powerful political forces were never meant to be pejorative in any sense." The animosity toward Israel and the American Jewish community expressed by the president was probably shaped in part by his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and shared by other senior staff. Scowcroft continues today to play an "elders" role in Washington, encouraging a change in policy toward Israel. In 1991, Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu, was under fire for using military and corporate aircraft for personal trips. According to press reports at the time, Sununu, a Lebanese-American, believed that the attacks against him were generated by pro-Israel groups motivated by his ethnic background and because his positions were "not fully supportive of Israel's demands on the United States." Sununu later sought out Jewish leaders to mollify them and deny that he made the charge. Bush's secretary of state James Baker was infamous for his enmity toward Israel. His purported remark, "F*** the Jews! They don't vote for us anyway," probably marks a low point in contemporary American Jewish history. ADMINISTRATIONS' POLICY differences with Israel and legislative challenges on Capitol Hill championed by AIPAC were often met in Washington by anti-Israel leaks to the press or by actions by counterintelligence officials. During the period 1977-1982 AIPAC led challenges on Capitol Hill against major US aircraft sales to Jordan, Egypt and particularly Saudi Arabia. On three occasions in those years I was approached at AIPAC by individuals offering classified information they claimed was important for Israel's security. Once, a man offered to provide blueprints of an air base being built in an Arab state. On another occasion, two men, claiming that their pastor encouraged them to help Israel, wanted to provide information on American military supplies to the Middle East. In the third case, information on US-Saudi ties was going to be provided. In all cases, I assumed that the men were part of counterintelligence "sting" operations, and I sent the suspected agents provocateurs packing. The third individual, by the way, was named Jonathan Pollard. I was wrong about his intentions, but AIPAC was spared. Ultimately, such a sting operation - without the transfer of any documents - was used to entrap the two AIPAC employees in 2005. Counterintelligence agencies in the US - and there are several - have long suspected that Jonathan Pollard had an accomplice, Agent X, and that American Jews may be guilty of dual loyalties. In 1997, phone taps of Israeli Embassy lines purportedly picked up a conversation about obtaining a document from an American mole code-named "Mega." No such spy existed, Israel insisted. One overzealous official who worked at both the CIA and FBI, David Szady, was involved in the AIPAC arrests as well as the hounding of an entry-level Jewish attorney at the CIA who had visited Israel as a teenager. Another case of clear anti-Semitic persecution involved a Jewish engineer at a tank facility in Michigan. In all cases, the investigations were finally dropped. Press leaks about Israeli spying, illegal weapons sales and the theft of military technology spout almost like clockwork during periods of tension between the two countries. The charges include claims that the Israeli Python air-to-air missile was based on Sidewinder technology, that the Lavie jet and Harpy drone technologies were transferred to China, and that Patriot anti-aircraft missile technology was compromised. No one should have been surprised, therefore by the most recent leak about Congresswoman Harman on the eve of the AIPAC Policy Conference and as the case against Rosen and Weissman crumbled. (Will there ever be an investigation launched to see who leaked details of a secret US government operation in which Harman was taped? Probably not.) Today's anti-Israel cabal of Walt, Mearsheimer, Freeman, and columnists Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristof have the luxury of several Jewish commentators and organizations that support them. Incredibly, the Jewish spokesmen claim to be pro-Israel, but their actions betray their claim. The spokesmen have recently defended Chas Freeman, praised the Walt-Mearsheimer book, lobbied Congress against supporting Israel's actions against Hamas in Gaza and called for the recognition of Hamas. Some of the spokesmen for this appeasement lobby appear to be the disciples and descendants of Rabbi Elmer Berger of the now defunct American Council for Judaism who raised funds at a Beirut dinner after the 1967 war where he likened Israel's nationalism to South Africa's apartheid. (Note that the apartheid falsehood heard so often at the Durban conferences goes back more than 40 years.) The appeasement lobby's hero, Stephen Walt, by the way, just published an eight-point "user's guide" on how the United States can "put pressure on Israel." AS THE 6,500 AIPAC conference attendees leave Capitol Hill and head back to their homes this week, they should be proud of their efforts. I still recall the words of former vice president and senator Hubert Humphrey, responding to the detractors of the pro-Israel lobby at the time of the Ford "reassessment" in 1976, telling some 450 AIPAC conference attendees that "columnists, editorial writers have warned us about ethnic lobbies. We've heard careless, and I think, reckless things being said about the powerful Jewish lobby. As if somehow or another, it was against the law in this country to speak up for what you believe in. "It is good for the basic democratic process," Humphrey continued, "that people who have convictions about what American public policy should be take time to get their fellow Americans and their public officials to understand what they believe and to urge their support. That's what we mean by free speech in this country. I say it will be a sad day for this country when its citizens stop using the precious guarantees in the first amendment to petition their government. "So I say, there is nothing new about lobbying on behalf of causes in foreign places. It's as American as a hot dog or apple pie, spaghetti, gefilte fish or Polish sausage." That sounds like a delicious menu. The writer served in AIPAC offices in Washington and Jerusalem for 25 years. Later he served as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington. He blogs at www.lennybendavid.com. May 5, 2009 "Confrontation" I knew it was going to be ugly. But the bounds of the confrontation we are going to face with Obama's administration transcends what I had expected. We have an enemy in the White House. And we have been let down by large parts of the American Jewish community. Following here are excerpts from a report that has just come out from Middle East News Line (MENL) -- an exceedingly reliable news and intelligence source. (My emphasis added) ~~~~~~~~~~ "President Barack Obama intends to press Israel to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank over the next two years. "Administration sources said the president has relayed messages to American Jewish leaders that the establishment of a Palestinian state would be the priority of his first term in office. The sources said Israeli assistance would determine whether Washington decides to resume efforts to block Iran's nuclear weapons program. "'The order is first a Palestinian state and then Iran,' an administration source said. "The sources said the White House has determined that a Palestinian state by 2012 was vital in the formation of any international coalition against Iran and its nuclear weapons program. They said Israel would be pressed to enable Palestinian Authority security forces to deploy throughout the West Bank as well as dismantle Jewish communities. "'They are systematically setting up the most decisive confrontation that we've ever seen,' former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said. "...Obviously, we want these [American Jewish] leaders to relay the president's priorities to Israel before the visit of the prime minister,' the source said. "The sources said Obama has also told European Union leaders that his administration would be more forceful with Israel. They said the Obama message stressed that Israel would not be allowed to sidetrack the international effort to establish a Palestinian state. "Obama was also said to have reaffirmed his determination for renewed talks for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war. The sources said Obama was convinced that Israel should pursue negotiations with both Syria and the Palestinian Authority over the next year. "'The president will get very specific in his talks with the Israeli prime minister,' the administration source said. 'The president will discuss specific measures and timetables..'" ~~~~~~~~~~ Where to begin in responding to this enraging information? It's the tone, perhaps most of all, that infuriates: "Israel would not be allowed..." "Obama was convinced that Israel should..." We are a sovereign state and yet Obama believes he can dictate to us. Or maybe it's the threat that riles: If you want help in taking down Iran's nuclear program, deliver what we want first. ~~~~~~~~~~ Then again it might be the collosal, pig-headed stupidity of this approach. I've said it before and I'll say it again here, and as many more times thereafter as is necessary: Establishment of a Palestinian state and stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions are two different issues that should be handled separately. The linkage being made by Obama is simply not acceptable or reasonable. Supporting our efforts to stop Iran does not DEPEND on anything except Obama's will to act appropriately. Iran is a threat to the free world, not just to Israel. If it goes nuclear it will certainly undermine all of the genuine interests of the US. So, if Iran does -- G-d forbid -- go nuclear, and US interests are threatened, is Obama going to say, "Gee, I couldn't act because Israel didn't establish a Palestinian state"? He has a responsibility to his nation and to the West on this score and he's evading it. The moderate Arab states -- most significantly Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- whatever they say publicly, are very much frightened by the prospect of a nuclear Iran and would be pleased to see Iran stopped. What is more, they have no genuine, deep, and abiding interest in a Palestinian state. As to the European states, Obama has moved to the left of them now with regard to Iran and nations such as France have expressed unease. ~~~~~~~~~~ And we have not yet come to the ludicrous or devious parts of this entire line of reasoning: Obama is saying that we must produce a Palestinian state by 2012 and then he'll act on Iran. But by 2012 Iran would have already gone nuclear and it would be much too late. Is this Obama's true intention? To let this happen while holding a threat over our heads? ~~~~~~~~~~ And finally this: The time is not ripe for a Palestinian state, even if it were a good idea (it's not) to establish one some day. Actually, the time is so wrong for this that anyone pushing for a state "within two years" has to be acting without concern for the repercussions of its establishment. Consider: -- Abbas is a weak leader who has not established the solid civic infratructure necessary for the establishment of a stable state. -- The PA is rife with corruption. -- Consequently the PA is one large welfare client, which operates on international handouts and has not established a viable economic base. -- The Palestinian people have not been prepared for peace, as incitement continues in the textbooks and in the press. The most horrendous of terrorists are lauded as martyrs, while school children are taught that jidad is something Allah seeks. But real peace must be built from the bottom up. -- The PA security forces, even those who have more recently been trained, are not reliable in so far as their will and capacity to take out terrorism is concerned. But then, there is a mixed message from the PA leaders. -- The PA has grown increasingly radical in recent years and is adamently opposed to any compromise with Israel at all. They want what they want. -- The PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is of major import, for if there is to be talk of a "two state solution," the idea is one state for the Jews and one for the Palestinians. Except the Palestinians won't sign on to this. They want to establish their state as Judenrein, and then to send 4.1 million hostile refugees inside our borders, swallowing us up as well. So, go build a stable, responsible Palestinian state from this that is supposed to lead to "peace." ~~~~~~~~~~ And this is just the beginning, for there is also an elephant in the room: Hamas. Obama clearly would prefer not to deal with this, but Hamas won't go away. Hamas refuses to renounce terrorism, honor past PA agreements with Israel or recognize Israel's right to exist. Hamas is in control of Gaza, which is currently a center for terrorist activities and an area into which ever more weaponry is being smuggled. What does Obama suggest will happen to Hamas if we sign a deal with Abbas and the PA? There are two possibilites. One is that the PA will form a unity government with Hamas. In this case, Obama would be expecting us to deal with a government that has a party that still embraces terrorism. More likely, Hamas will remain independent. It is already on its way to establishing a separate government. (More on this, hopefully tomorrow.) What this means is that we're being asked to live with TWO Palestinian states between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. What is more, Hamas has clearly indicated a desire to take over in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) if the Israeli forces that contain them pull out. This means Palestinian states on both flanks that are overtly terrorist. ~~~~~~~~~~ So, what we're seeing is that Obama's bow to the Saudi king was emblematic of his kissing-up-to-the-Muslims intent, which includes a willingness to put Israel on the chopping block. But we Israelis are not having it. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the AIPAC conference by video. He's playing a difficult game -- the game I wrote about recently: being as conciliatory as possible without stepping over a red line. He spoke about the fact that he is ready to do negotiations with the Palestinians -- on economy, security and political matters. He said that he was sure that it was possible to reach peace. HOWEVER, he refrained from ever referring to either a "two state solution" -- the sacred mantra -- or referring to a "Palestinian state." He has neither in mind. What is more, he says he will never sacrifice Israel's security. That alone precludes a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. And he will insist that Israel be recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish state. ~~~~~~~~~~ I would like, then, to return to what I wrote about yesterday. Netanyahu requires the maximum in support from all of us before he heads to the White House. If you have not yet communicated with him, please, do so. Israelis: Let him know that you are a citizen, and that you support him as he goes to the US. Ask him please to stand strong and to resist pressure to accept a "two state solution." Tell him that this is what his nation needs of him right now, that we need him to speak in the best interests of Israel and to speak out for Israeli rights. Numbers matters, folks! American citizens can also contact him. But you will need to say something different. From Americans he needs to hear that not everyone in the US wants a two-state solution. Tell him briefly about how you personally work to support Israel from within the US: rallying support via e-mails, holding discussions with people, writing letters to the editor, contacting your Congresspersons or Senators -- or whatever else you do. Whether here in Israel, or in the US, please share this broadly by forwarding. Remove the "forwarding" data from the subject line and at the head of the message, and, if you wish, add your own introduction. Note that I've added the proper way to dial from the States and note as well that the e-mail has an underscore after "pm." Fax: 02-670-5369 (From the US: 011-972-2-5367) Phone: 03-610-9898 (From the US: 011-972-3-610-9898) E-mail: pm_eng2@it.pmo.gov.il ~~~~~~~~~~ One more word about AIPAC here: The question has been raised in several quarters regarding whether Netanyahu signed off on their "two state" position. This was asked because normally AIPAC, which is a US organization lobbying for Israel, takes its cue from the Israeli government. It would seem he did not sign off on this, because had he, in his address to AIPAC he would have spoken about his vision of a "two state solution," and instead he studiously avoided this term. But I went further and asked some questions of people in the know, and the best answer is that it is highly unlikely that he did. What has happened, however, is that AIPAC has now made things more difficult for Netanyahu. There are various theories floating, but why they did what they did is a question to which I have no answer as I write. My bet has something to do with pressure from the White House in one form or another. ~~~~~~~~~~ Americans must wake up and understand that what Obama is doing is enormously destructive to America. They must be educated to the realities. And I'm hoping that those of you in the US reading this who are activists and care deeply about the current situation will be on board over the next several months as we mount campaigns to fight this. I've provided core information to bolster arguments and am available to anyone who seeks more. Those of you who are Jewish Americans and connected to establishment Jewish organizations must begin to apply serious pressure on the leadership of these organizations, which has let us down -- caving to Obama rather than making the case that needs to be made. In short order I hope I will be able to have more regarding contact with elected representatives. ~~~~~~~~~~ see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info The Two-State Solution, A Shangri-La for Israel and Is Jews by Larry Gould According to “AIPAC delegates to lobby for two-state solution,” the heading of the enclosed article in the May 4 Internet edition in the Jerusalem Post, the leading US lobby for Israel supports a two-state solution if there is “an absolute Palestinian commitment to end violence, terror and incitement and to build the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace with the Jewish state of Israel inside secure borders.”
The trouble is, AIPAC support for a two-state solution ignores the history of territorial Arabs and their leaders since Oslo began over 15 years ago, also the following statement by Abbas in Ramallah on April 27, 2009:
“A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly.”
As Abbas explained, “All I know is that there is a state of Israel , in the borders of 1967, not one centimeter more, not one centimeter less. Anything else, I don’t accept.” He also said resuming talks would require a freeze on settlement construction by Israel .
Questions are:
1. Why did AIPAC leaders and over 6,000 at this year’s annual conference ignore Abbas’ statement?
2. Why did those leaders and their 6,000 followers ignore that Hamas, which controls Gaza, refuses to negotiate with Israel and has stated publicly, many times, that its ultimate goal is destruction of Israel?
3. Why didn’t the AIPAC position call for the Palestinian commitments mentioned above to be confirmed before lobbying for a two-state solution? For now, 15 years after Oslo , the record shows that Fatah and Hamas leaders, as well as a majority of those they rule, have failed to honor that commitment called for in the Oslo Accords.
So why put the cart before the horse in a Congressional Resolution that would mean nothing? For Hamas and Fatah have never accorded Congress any respect. So any Congressional Resolution in support of a two-state solution would merely be “feel good,” ...nothing more.
Yes, it could take a few years before such commitment can be proved. Yes, that would delay introduction of the Resolution. But why put the cart before the horse when there is no historical indication Fatah and Hamas will honor a commitment as a pre-requisite for a two-state solution?
4. The letter to Obama includes the following words, “Once terrorists are no longer in control of Gaza ...” This ignores reality.
Hamas obtained control of Gaza several years ago in a short bloody war with Fatah, There are no signs that Fatah has the military ability to regain control. Israel ’s refusal to continue the recent war in Gaza to topple Hamas from power means that Hamas will retain control. Rebuilding Gaza after the war is Obama policy. It will only strengthen Hamas control.
So absent another Israeli invasion to unseat Hamas from Gaza , the terrorist group will retain control of Gaza . That renders a Congressional resolution worthless.
5. Passing such a resolution, absent Fatah and Hamas action to implement complying with that commitment, is self-deceiving and unrealistic. The Israeli people and their current government deserve better from AIPAC leaders, over 6,000 who attend the current convention and over 100,000 members of AIPAC.
6. A two-state solution ignores the threat to Israel ’s security of a Palestinian state, under control of Fatah and/or Hamas, whose land will almost cut Israel in two and control high strategic mountains.
After failure of Oslo , Disengagement, The Road Map and Annapolis , and with the current civil war between Hamas and Fatah, isn’t it overdue for AIPAC supporters of Israel to stop kidding themselves about a two-state solution at this time...perhaps for decades? It will obstruct rather than serve Israeli and US Middle East goals.
Larry Gould, Chairman, Cleveland Board of Governors of Middle East Forum
P.S. The opinions above are my own. They do not reflect the position of Middle East Forum or any other group.
I was active as a key contact with AIPAC from 1980-1993. Since AIPAC supported Oslo , I suspended involvement. Its support for a two-state solution, with which I believe the majority of top IDF planners disagree, is reason to continue the suspension for the foreseeable future. I believe a two-state solution serves the interests of Israel ’s Arab enemies much more than it serves Israel ’s strategic interests and security.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710853298&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter |
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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